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MEMORIAL SEEYICES 



// 



CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 



Leslie's Expedition to Salem 



SUNDAY, FEBRTJAEY 26, 1775, 



FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1875, 



SV TflB 



CITY AUTHORITIES OF SALEM. 




SALEM, MASS., 
1875. 



r 



.5 



PRINTED AT THE 

jalcm dJbscrbcr Stca:n |1nutiug Jloom,-. 



226 1-2 Essex St. 



CONTENTS 



Action of the City Government. 

Order for Celebration, 5 

Vote of Thanks for Addresses, 6 

Order for Printing Addresses 6 

Preface, il 

Programme, n 

address by Henry L. Williams, 23 

Address by George B. Loring, 32 

Address by Edmund B. Willson, 77 

Plan of North Church, Salem, 1775, 82 



-O 



ACTION OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT. 



ACTION or THE CITY GOVERNMENT. 



At a meeting of the Board of Aldermen, on Saturday, Feb. 13, 1875, 
the Mayor sent in a communication setting forth the propriety of com- 
memorating, in a suitable manner, the one hundredth anniversary of Lieut.- 
Colonel Leslie's expedition to Salem, on Sunday, February 26, 1775, to capture 
some cannon purporting to be stored in the vicinity of the North bridge. 
The forcible resistance at this point, to the progress of the Royal troops, the 
compromise of Lieut.-Colonel Leslie, after considerable discussion, and the 
withdrawal of the troops and return to Boston without accomplishing the 
object intended, have great significance in this the opening drama of the 
Revolution. 

The communication was favorably received, and the following order was 
unanimously adopted ; viz. : 

In Board of Aldebmen, City of Salem, I 
February 13th, 1875. ( 

Ordered : 

That a Joint Special Committee, consisting of His Honor the Mayor, and 
Aldermen Ide and Stowe on the part of this Board, with such as the Common 
Council may join, be appointed to consider and report what arrangements 
if any should be made for a proper observance of the approaching centen- 
nial anniversary of the opening of the Revolutionary war at North bridge 
in Salem. 

In Board of Mayor and Aldermen, ) 
February 13th, 1875. ) 

Order adopted and sent to Common Council for concurrence and to be 

joined. 

HENRY M. MEEK, CLERK. 

In Common Council, i 

February 18, 1875. ) 

Adopted in concurrence, and Messrs. Hill, Riley and Huntington joined 
to the committee, and leave granted the committee to sit during the ses- 
sion of the Council this evening. 

E. N. WALTON, CLERK. 



The Mayor submitted the following report : 

In City Council, City of Salem, ( 
February 18, 1875. ) 

The Joint Special Committee appointed to see what arrangements if any, 

should be made for a proper observance of the approaching centennial 

anniversary of Leslie's Retreat, would respectfully 



ACTION ON THE CITY GOVERNMENT. 



REPORT. 

That it is advisable that the occasion be celebrated in an appropriate 
manner, and would therefore recommend that the national flag be displayed 
on all public buildings ; that the bells of the city be rung at sunrise, noon 
and sunset, one-half hour each ; that a salute of one hundred guns be fired 
at noon; and that suitable exercises, including an address, be held at the 
North Church, at two and one-half o'clock in the afternoon. Your commit- 
tee further recommend the adoption of the following order. 
For the Committee, 

HENRY L. WILLIAMS, CHAIRMAN. 
Ordered, 

That the Joint Special Committee having under consideration the pro- 
posed celebration on the 26th inst., be authorized and instructed to perfect 
and carry out the recommendations made in their report, and that the 
expense thereof be charged to the Mayor and Aldermen's Department. 

In Board of Mayor and Aldermen, I 
February 18, 1875. ) 

Keport accepted, order adopted and sent down for concurrence. 

HENRY M. MEEK, CLERK. 

IN COMMON COTJNCIL, | 

February 18, 1875. ) 

Concurred. 

E. N. WALTON, CLERK. 



In City Council, City of Salem, ( 
March 8, 1876. ) 

Ordered, 

That the thanks of the City Council be tendered to the Hon. Geo. B. Lor- 
ing and Rev. E. B. Willson for their able and interesting addresses at the 
centennial commemoration of Leslie's Retreat, and that they be requested 
to furnish a copy of the same for publication. 
Ordered, 

That the thanks of the City Council be tendered to Mr. M. Fenollosa and 
the members of the Salem Oratorio Society for their valuable services on 
that occasion. 

ORDERED, 

That the " Joint Standing Committee on Printing " be instructed to cause 
to be printed five hundred copies of the exercises held at North Church, on 
the afternoon of February 26tli, 1875, and that the expense of the same be 
charged to the Mayor and Aldermen's Department. 

In Board of Mayor and Aldermen, l 
March 8, 1875 . ) 

Orders adopted and sent down for concurrence. 

HENRY M. MEEK, CLERK. 

Iff Common Council, I 
March 22, 1875.) 
Concurred. 

E. N. WALTON, CLERK. 



PREFACE 



PREFACE. 



The contents of the following pages might, 
perhaps, have been left to introduce themselves 
to the reader. To here and there one, however, 
a few explanatory words may seem necessary. 

The first centenary of the Republic is just 
coming full. The series of events beginning 
with the passage from peaceful debate to open con- 
flict early in 1775 and ending with the transition 
from war to peace again in 1783, are at this time 
recalling themselves to the grateful remembrance 
of the people of the country. The border line 
between argument and war was almost exactly 
drawn through the 26th of February, 1775, by 
occurrences at Salem which could scarcely be 
classed as belonging to either the one or the 
other of these methods of contest. The doings 
of that day hardly come under the designation 
of pacific discussion, though here were parleying, 
argmnent and appeal to moral obligation. They 
could hardly be denominated acts of war, though 



12 PREFACE. 

here were swords, bayonets and marshalled sol- 
diers in arms, on the one part, and an open, 
hostile stand on the other, of so threatening an 
aspect, that the soldiers of the English King 
turned back from a military expcidition on which 
they had been sent by the Governor who repre- 
sented the English King in Massachusetts, their 
orders unexecuted ; and here was made the first 
real push of steel, though but hesitatingly and in 
a spirit of indecision ; nor yet starting the full 
flow of blood that could not be stanched. It may 
be considered the last defiant menace, or the first 
battle ; and about as fairly one as the other. 

It was a memorable day, not only for Salem 
but for the colonies. It showed the temper of 
the people, satisfying those whom it concerned 
to know, on either side, that they would not 
flinch in the presence of loaded muskets and 
naked sword blades. It foreshadowed the day, 
as near, when the guns and swords would come 
to strenuous use. It fell just short of being the 
Concord or the Lexington of the Revolution, but 
only for want of the reckless word from the 
British commander, which at Lexington applied 
the match. 



I 



PREFACE . 13 

As the affair at our l^orth Bridge lacked the 
dramatic interest of the more pronounced and 
conspicuous events of the 19th of April, and as 
its centennial anniversary was so soon to be 
followed by the more notable demonstrations of 
patriotic feeling preparing at Concord and Lex- 
ington, it was thought by the CxOvernment and 
citizens of Salem, a day neither to be passed over 
in silence and altogether without public recogni- 
tion on the one hand, nor on the other as requir- 
ing a general notice and summons to the country 
at large to attend. 

In accordance with this estimate of its import- 
ance, a programme of celebration was determined 
upon by a Committee of the Municipal Govern- 
ment appointed for this purpose. Under the 
direction of this committee, the national flag was 
displayed on all public buildings ; the bells of 
the city were rung at sunrise, noon and sunset, 
one-half hour each ; a salute of one hundred 
guns was fired at noon ; and a public assembly 
and addresses, with religious and patriotic services 
at the North meeting-house, constituted the most 
prominent feature of the day's celebration. The 
musical exercises at the church were under the 



14 PREFACE. 

direction of Mr. M. Fenollosa, and the singing 
was by a choir selected from the Salem Oratorio 
Society. The order of exercises is here inserted, 
and the addresses by His Honor, Mayor Heney 
L. WiLLiAJvis, Hon. George B. Loring and 
Rev. B. B. Will SON are contained in the pages 
which follow. 



t 



EXEECISES AT THE NOETH CHURCH. 



PROGRAMME. 



/. VOLUJ^TA^RY. 

II. (]?(RAYER. 

III. OmGIJIAL 0(DE. 

BY MISS L. L. A. VERY. 

Leslie's Ketreat, sounding far through the years ! 

Their footsteps are marching, marching to-day ; 
Gone are the trials, privations and fears 

Our ancestors bore 'neath England's proud sway. 
Sown in War's furrows with blood and with tears, 
The harvest of Peace we are reaping to-day. 

Cho. — The first shot of Freedom to-day we repeat ! 
Here's to the mem'iy of Leslie's Retreat ! 
A health to the brave ones of old ! 

Back from our borders by land and by sea, 
Born unto freedom^ we turn back the feet, 

Feet of oppressors, whoe'er they may be, 

They'll march to the tune of " Leslie's Retreat !" 

Back from our borders by land and by sea. 
We turn back oppressors, whoe'er they may be. 

Cho. — The first shot of Freedom to-day we repeat ! 
Here's to the mem'ry of Leslie's Retreat, 
A health to the brave ones of old ! 

Between wrong and right let us e'er draw the line, 
Though poverty 's here, — there, red coats so fine ; 

When Georges send down their mandates so wise. 
Our North Bridge shall rival the famed Bridge of Sighs. 

Cherish the names of the brave and the true, — 
Barnard, and Sprague, and Pickering, too. 

Cho. — The first shot of Freedom to-day we repeat I 
Here's to the mem'ry of Leslie's Retreat ! 
A health to the brave ones of old ! 



18 PPtOGKAMME. 



IV. A(D(D^RESS. 

BY THE MAYOR. 



V. A(b(DfRESS. 

BY HON. G. B. LORING. 



VI. JIJTIOMAL SOJIG. 

Noble Republic ! happiest of lands, 
Foremost of nations, Columbia stands — 
Freedom's proud banner floats in the skies, 
Where shouts of Liberty daily arise. 
" United we stand, divided we fall " — 
" Union forever " — freedom to all ! 

Cho. — Throughout the world our motto shall be. 
Long live America, home of the free. 

Should ever traitor rise in the land, 
Cursed be his homestead, withered his hand ; 
Shame, be his mem'ry ; scorn, be his lot ; 
Exile, his heritage ; his name, a blot. 
" United we stand, divided we fall," 
Granting a home and freedom to all. 

To all her heroes — Justice and Fame. 

To all her foes — a traitor's foul name. 

Our " stripes and stars " still proudly shall wave, 

Emblem of liberty, flag of the brave ! 

"United we stand, divided we fall," 

Gladly we'll die at our country's call. — Cho. 



VII. AQOfkESS. 

BY REV. E. B. WILLSON. 






PROGRAMME. 19 



VIII. MUSIC— AMEnuCA. 

My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died. 
Land of the pilgrim's pride ; 
From ev'ry mountain side 

Let freedom ring. 

My native country ! thee, 
Land of the noble free, 

Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills. 
Thy woods and templed hills. 
My heart with rapture thrills. 

Like that ahove. 

Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet Freedom's song ; 
Let mortal tongues awake ; 
Let all that breathes partake ; 
Let rocks their silence break. 

The sound prolong. 



ADDRESS BY MAYOR WILLIAMS. 



ADDRESS. 



On the 26th of February, 1775, three hundred 
British troops, under the command of Lt. Col. 
LesHe, came from Boston, under orders from 
Gov. Gage, to seize and take possession of a 
number of cannon belonging to Salem and her 
citizens. 

The Hon. Richard Derby, a patriotic citizen 
and a member of the Legislative body, was one 
of the owners of the guns ; and when asked to 
intercede with Capt. Mason for their delivery, 
said, — " If they can find them, they can take 
them." On the arrival of messengers from Mar^ 
blehead, announcing the arrival of the British 
troops from Boston and their departure for 
Salem, bells were immediately rung, drums were 
beat and alarm guns fired to inform the people of 
the movement. 

The British troops left Marblehead between two 
and three o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at 
Salem about four. This move of the British 



24 ADDKE8S BY H. L. AVILLIAMS. 

army was the first open invasion of the rights 
and freedom of the people, and brought out in 
broad daylight the first actual resistance in arms 
to the Koyal authority of the crown. In the 
month of October previous, Gov. Gage, finding 
the people of Boston disloyal, determined to 
remove the Colonial Assembly to Salem ; but here 
he ibund no l^etter state of feeling, and endeav- 
ored to proi'ogue them even before they w^ere in 
session. The assembly did meet, however, and 
resolved themselves into the first provincial Con- 
gress, which Congress subsequently carried our 
struggling country safely through the Kevolu- 
tionary War. To this Congress Salem loaned, on 
the 15th of Januaiy, 1775, three cannon ; these 
guns were probably a part of those sought for by 
Col. Leslie. 

On arrival of the British troops at JN^orth 
bridge, they found the draw hoisted and a great 
crowd of armed people present. The demonstra- 
tion plainly told them that thus far they could go 
and no farther, — any attempted advance would be 
fatal to the command, — the deliberate, determined 
spirit of resistance on the part of our fathers 
forbade any further encroachment upon their 



ADDRESS BY H. L. WILLIAMS. 25 

rights as freemen, and if need be their lives would 
be given for their country. Seeing such a posi- 
tion of affairs, Col. Leslie very wisely acted upon 
the old proverb, that " discretion will preserve us, 
understanding will keep us," and retreated from 
the presence of the brave men whom he had 
signally failed to drive from their j^osition at 
North bridge. Col. Leslie hurried home to tell 
his commander of the complete failure of his 
expedition to Salem. For this defeat, 'tis said, 
Col. Leslie was court-martialed. 

This deliberate, open resistance by our towns- 
men to the decree of the crown took place about 
seven weeks before the resistance at Lexington 
and Concord. 

Salem has ever been ready to appropriately 
notice anniversaries of prominent events ; there 
have been many such here, local in their charac- 
ter, yet possessing their significance. We have 
now come to those of a national character, such 
as cannot fail to fill our hearts with gratitude 
to Almighty God for his guidance and his bless- 
ings through the hundred years since our coun- 
try's birth, — a nation commencing in 1775, with 
thirteen States, covering eight hundred thousand 
4 



26 ADDRESS BY II. L. WILLIAMS. 

square miles, and a population of three million 
people, now grown to thirty-seven States and 
twelve territories, covering three million five 
hundred thousand square miles, and with a popu- 
lation of more than forty millions. 

In the ISTorth meeting-house, in Salem, three 
prominent events have been commemorated. The 
first was in 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of that 
Independence which sprang from the noble spirit 
of such as stood at Korth bridge in 1775. The 
second was in 1828, the bi-centennial of the land- 
ing of Gov. Endicott at Salem ; an eloquent 
address was delivered upon that occasion by 
Joseph Story, one of the Judges of the Supreme 
Judicial Court of the United States. The third 
was in 1872, the centennial anniversary of the 
founding of this church, when an address was 
delivered by the pastor. Rev. E. B. Willson. 

We have now come to Ihe fourth celebration 
in this church, transcending all others in its 
private and national significance, reminding us, 
as it does, of the first successful efl'ort to throw 
off the yoke that could no longer be borne. The 
26th of February, 1775, was the dawning of 
freedom on this continent ; the day-star of Lib- 



ADDKESS BY II. L. WILLIAMS. 27 

erty had already arisen, and an independent 
people stood before the world. 

No vigor of youth, no maturity of manhood 
can ever lead this nation to forget the spot where 
its infancy first was cradled. 



ADDEESS BY HON. GEORGE B. LORING. 



ADDRESS 



Fellow Citizens : 

The importance and value of historical events 
are not to be estimated by their magnitude, but 
by their significance. The broadest conquests, 
the most daring invasions, the most imposing 
array of advancing armies, before whose achieve- 
ments the civilized world may have paused in 
wonder and admiration, have found a place in 
history so small that only the curious and the 
studious count them worthy of even a passing 
consideration; while a blow struck at a telling 
moment, a word uttered in a decisive hour, a spark 
falling where the waiting embers lie, may open 
an immortal conflict, or set the world ablaze with 
a new and radiant chapter of human endeavor. 
The incident which has called us together this 
afternoon, and whose anniversary is the com- 
mencement of a most interesting and important 
series of national ceremonials intended to indi- 
cate the high value set upon the opening scenes 



32 ADDKESS BY GEO. B. LOKES^G. 

of the American Revolution, was hardly entitled 
in its day to the honor of an exact and relia])le 
record. It is not easy, now, at the close of the 
first century since its occurrence, to give it a 
precise narration. A casual mention in cotempo- 
raneous history, a fleeting paragraph in a news- 
paper, constitute all the annals which its actors 
and eye-witnesses considered it to be worthy of. 
Had it not been preceded by a century and a 
half of human sacrifice, and suflering, and lofty 
demand, and high assertion, out of which it grew, 
it would have been forgotten long ago. Had it 
not been attended by a resolute purpose, and 
followed by great achievement, it would have 
been consigned to oblivion, and looked upon 
as trivial, even by those who took part in the 
performance. But now we pause to contemj)late 
it, we linger around it, we rehearse its simple 
story, warmed by the memory of the heroism out 
of which it grew, inspired by the spirit which 
animated it, charmed by the greatness of the day 
and generation to which it belongs. 

It is as an event in a long-continued career of 
individual and popular greatness, that the conflict 
at I^orth bridge l)ec()mes interesting and import- 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. [. ORING. ^^3 

ant, — a career in whicli Salem had from the 1)e- 
ginning- stood foremost. Here it was that the 
combined efforts of England and the American 
colonies to establish the Anglo-Saxon power on 
this continent, and of the Puritan element of that 
day to engraft the spirit and genius of progres- 
sive, English theology and ecclesiasticism in the 
new world, had found most useful support. 
Here Endicott led the way in the woi-k of reject- 
ing the whole constitution of the English Estab- 
lishment ; and while ordering the two Councillors 
John and Samuel Browne back to England 
because they opposed this secession from the 
]N"ational Establishment, had sustained the min- 
isters, who declared " that they came away from 
the Common Prayer and ceremonies, and had 
suffered much for their non-conformity in their 
native land, and therefore being in a place where 
they might have their liberty, they neither could 
nor would use them, because they judged the 
imposition of these things to be sinful corruptions 
in the word of God," Here Higginson drew 
up " a confession of faith and church covenant 
according to Scripture," and here with Christian 
devotion he displayed his holy zeal, his distin- 

5 



34 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOKING. 

guished talents, acquirements and scholarship, 
nntil he fell an early victim of the hardship) and 
suffering of the colony. Here Roger Williams, 
the original come-outer, had refused communion 
with all but such as would make proclamation 
of their repentance for having formerly partaken 
the elements with communicants of the Church 
of England, had declared that the magistrate 
might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, 
had stirred up Plymouth and Salem alternately, 
and Jiad found repose in Pi'ovidence. Here w^as 
the early colonial home of Winthrop, and Dudley, 
and Saltonstall, and Bradstreet, and Pynchon, 
who never forgot the toils and trials of the colony 
at IN^aumkeag. It was fi-oni the prosperous mer- 
chants of this town that Sir William Pepperell 
had leceived his most efficient aid in that expedi- 
tion against Louisburg, whose fall "filled Europe 
with astonishment and America with joy," and 
was the first fatal blow at the powder of. France 
on this continent. Here it was that at the very 
commencement of the hostilities between the 
Colonies and Gi-eat Britain, the people had zeal- 
ously, and fearlessly, and consistently sustained 
the cause of frecdoui. It was es^^ecially in this 



ADDRESS BY GEO. U. LORTNG. 35 . 

last event that Salem performed a conspicuous 
part, and won for herself such an important 
position, that the resistance at North bridge 
was at the time especially significant, as an 
example and an appeal to the Commonwealth 
and the country. In a thriving commercial em- 
porium, which had been tempted witli royal 
offers of peculiar commercial privileges, and 
had been made the seat of the colonial govern- 
ment, the first step to disarm the colonies, met 
with prompt and successful resistance, even at 
the risk of swift destruction on land and on sea. 
The history of 4;he part Salem performed in that 
hour when the whole country was responding 
to the patriotic voice of Boston, and the great 
charity of the land was open for the suppoi't of 
her suffering inhabitants, is so interesting, and 
so necessary in order to give a jjroper under- 
standing of the stand made at North bridge, 
that, even though a tale twice told, I must 
rehearse it here. 

From the time when resistance to the Stamp 
Act and the Port Bill commenced, to that when 
Parliament declared that it would "interdict all 
commerce with Americans, and protect the loyal. 



36 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORING. 

and declare all others traitors and rebels;" and 
Gage had determined to seize and destroy all 
stores of ai-ms and munitions of war fomid in 
the colony, Salem had taken an active part, — 
not, however, without some diversion of senti- 
ment among her people, in which patriotism had 
always prevailed. Her two representatives in 
the provincial Congress, William Brown and 
Peter Frye, voted, it is true, to sustain the order 
of the King, to rescind a circular sent by Massa- 
chusetts to the other colonies in ojjposition to the 
duty imposed by Parliament on paper, glass, 
painters' colors and teas ; but the people here 
voted to thank the " glorious ninety-two " who 
voted not to obey the King, " for their firmness 
in maintaining our just rights and liberties." 
When General Gage determined to remove the 
trade from Boston to Salem, forty-eight of our 
merchants " commended to him the trade and 
welfare of the town ;" but one hundred and 
twenty-five patriots declared in written address, 
that they had common cause with the oppressed 
city, and would in no way take advantage of 
the prohibition of her trade. On the 7th of June, 
1774, the Provincial Congress assembled in Salem 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORESTG. 37 

under order from Governor Gage. But he fared 
no better here than he had hi Boston before the 
pressure of pubUc sentiment ; for on the 17th 
of June, ten days after assembhng, they resolved 
that a general Congress was necessary, and 
'.hat they proceed to choose delegates. They 
protested against the arbitrary order for the 
•emoval of the assembly to Salem. Samuel 
Adams was among them ; and he never slum- 
bered nor slept until he had succeeded in secur- 
ing the election of Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John 
Adams, Gushing, and Robert Treat Paine, as 
delegates to the General Congress to assemble 
at Philadelphia on the first day of September. 
The Assembly sitting in Salem was immediately 
dissolved by Gage, whose secretary read the 
proclamation on the stairs leading to the half of 
meeting, finding it impossible to gain admission. 
This event occurred in the Town House, erected 
in 1718, and " situated on Essex street, next to 
and westward of the First Church." 

The people of Salem, filled with the fervor 
which inspired the whole country, had now taken 
matters into their own hands. They chose dele- 
gates in town meeting to attend the convention 



38 ADDRESS BY GEO. Ti. T.OKTNG. 

in Ipswich, and declared that " we hold our lib- 
erties too dear to be sported with, and are there- 
upon most seriously determined to support them." 
They called on Peter Frye to apologize for issu- 
ing a warrant to prosecute the committee who 
allowed the town-meeting, and to agree to liold 
no commission under the new act of Parliament ; 
and " he gave his assent.'*' They waited on 
William Brown, and demanded of him to resign 
his offices of counsellor and judge ; he agreed 
to act with " honor and integrity.'' They re- 
quired William Vans and t)thers, who had signed 
• an address to Governor Hutchinson approving 
of his course, to explain and apologize for such 
conduct. They opened their arms to receive the 
Provincial Legislature, which met in Salem, Oct. 
5th, in disregard of the order of Governor Gage, 
and protected them, until they adjourned to meet 
in Concord. They resolved that their collectors 
of taxes should pay " no more money to Harrison 
, Gray, the province treasurer." And they freely 
offered of their substance for the support of their 
suffering brethren in Boston. 

The winter of 1774—5 came on. The gulf 
between the colonies and the mother country 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORING. 89 

grew deeper and deeper continually. Gage had 
grown weary of endeavoring to control the Pro- 
vincial Assembly of Massachusetts, and had 
proceeded to fortify Boston. TAventy thousand 
volunteers from the inland counties had marched 
towards Boston, on the seizure of powder and 
field pieces in Medford, and had sorrowfully 
dispersed, because they were told that " the hour 
had not yet come." "Outside of Boston, the 
king's rule was at an end." All attempts of the 
crown judges to hold courts in the province 
failed. Oliver, the impeached chief justice, had 
declared it impossible to exercise his office, as 
none would act as jurors. The Sufiblk Conven- 
tion had met, and under the lead of Warren, 
to whom Samuel Adams, Avho was now in 
Congress, had entrusted the guidance of affairs 
in Massachusetts, had resolved "that the sover- 
eign wlio breaks his compact with his people, 
forfeits their allegiance. By their duty to God, 
their country, themselves and posterity, they 
pledged the country to maintain their civil and 
religious liberties, and to transmit them entire 
to future generations. They rejected as uncon- 
stitutional the regulating act of Parliament, and 



40 ADDRESS BY UEO. B. LOKIXG. 

all the officers appointed under its authority. 
Attributing to the British commander-in-chief 
hostile intentions, they directed the collector of 
taxes to pay over no money to the ti^easurer 
whom he recognized. They advised the towns 
to elect for themselves officers of their militia, 
from such as were inflexible friends of the rights 
of the people. For purposes of Provincial gov- 
ernment they advised a Provincial Congress 
which promised respect and submission to Con- 
tinental Congress." " They determined to act 
towards Great Britain on the defensive, so long- 
as such conduct might be vindicated by reason 
and the principles of self-preservation, but no 
longer." 

Congress, too, had met ; and Patrick Henry, 
and Samuel Adams, and John Adams, and George 
Washington, and John Rutledge, and Pichard 
Henry Lee, and Poger Sherman, had declared 
that "■ an entire new government must be found- 
ed," and that " our ancestors found here no 
government, and as a consequence had a right 
to make their own." In support of this, the 
eloquence of Patrick Henry burst like a torrent 
from his native hills. By his side stood the 



ADDKESS BY GEO. B. LOEING. 41 

accomplished and intrepid Lee. The right arm 
of Washington Avas nerved at once for the 
great service which soon devolved upon him. 
John Adams, acute, impassioned, learned from 
the best ]S^ew England schools, bore the cause 
on through all opposition ; while Samuel Adams, 
" although by no means remarkable for brilliant 
qualities," carried the great proposition home 
to the people, and with a skill no faction could 
resist, gave to the opening revolution all the 
tone and manliness and uncompromising resolve 
of his own undaunted spirit. 

It was the month of February, 1775. On that 
month, Chatham presented his '' conciliatory 
measure; " in Parliament, which satisfied Franks 
lin, and which Jeiferson approved, but of which 
Samuel Adams, the wary and far-sighted, said : 
" Let us take care, lest instead of a thorn in the 
foot, we have a dagger in the heart." On that 
month, Massachusetts was declared by Parlia- 
ment to be in rebellion ; although Wilkes de- 
clared that " a fit and proper resistance is a revo- 
lution, not a rebellion." On that month, the 
Provincial Congress of Massachusetts appointed 
a committee of eleven, to take possession of 
6 



42 ADDRESS BY C4EO. B. LOKT^^G. 

the warlike stores in the province, and to muster 
so many of the militia as they should judge 
necessary. On that month, of a whiter mild 
and beautiful beyond comparison, the people of 
New England turned their grateful hearts to 
God, as they recognized the " gracious inter- 
position of heaven," amidst all their trials and 
sufterings ; and listened with renewed courage 
to the words of cheer which came to them from 
the farmers of the Mohawk and Hudson, from 
" the dwellers on the waters of the Shenandoah," 
from the adventurers in the valle^^ of Kentucky, 
from the sunny South, and even from the despotic 
shores of Europe. On that month, the event 
took place which we now connnemorate, and 
which derives its significance and importance 
from its connection with the great struggle 
which I have brought before your minds. Leslie's 
expedition was one of the measures adopted by 
Gov. Gage to disarm the people of Massachu- 
setts, who were now preparing to strike for their 
freedom. It belongs to that series of events 
of which the seizures at MQ.dford and IS^ewport 
were successful, and of which the march to 
Concord and Lexington furnished one of the 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORING. 43 

great events of histoiy. It was a victory of 
American citizens over their oppressors, a victory 
won by that intrepidity and resohition which at 
last gave us our freedom. A single paragraph 
in history records the tale. But as we read the 
ist of our townsmen who took their fearless 
stand there, we find names which should be en- 
rolled by the side of those who fell at Lexington 
and Concord, as ready to do or die for their 
country, armed with jealous care against the 
first approaches of the foe and oppressor. 

The " committee of eleven " appointed by the 
Provincial Congress to take possession of the war- 
like stores of the province, had been active in the 
discharge of their duty, in spite of the spies of 
Gov. Gage, who watched them at ever}'^ corner. 
Among the many little collections of the rude 
and primitive ordnance of the times, Avhich they 
made in various parts of the pi'ovince, there 
were seventeen cannon received in Salem, and 
placed under the care of Captain David Mason, a 
painter, electrician, lecturer, a jDatriotic mechanic, a 
citizen, and soldier, — one of that class who closed 
the workshops of New England during the dark- 
ness of the war, and returned not until the 



44 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORTNG. 

light of freedom broke over the land. Captain 
Mason had employed Robert Foster, a black- 
smith, whose shop stood near the sjjot, to mount 
these gims on carriages for the use of the 
province. A journeyman of Foster's, acting as 
a spy for Governor Gage, betrayed the secret 
to the British authorities in Boston, on Saturday 
afternoon, the 25th of February. Gage had not 
forgotten his recent troubles in Salem — the Con- 
gress there — the town meeting — the choice of 
delegates to the General Congress — the few 
stormy months of his residence among us. He 
was in hot haste to intimidate the rebellious 
town ; and he ordered Colonel Leslie to leave 
Castle William, in Boston harbor, the following 
morning, with a body of men sufficient to seize 
and remove the guns. 

It was the early dawn of a Sabbath morning, 
at that season of the year when all nature is 
wrapt in repose, that a transport filled with 
armed men, cast oft' from the wharf at Castle 
William. In the gray morning light no other 
object was astir. The waters of the deserted 
harbor, bound with icy shores, la}^ without a 
ripple, as if the frost-king had already laid his 



ADDRESS BY flEO. P.. L()RTN(f. 45 

hand upon them and fixed them there. The 
tall and motionless mast of an English man- 
of-war stood sentinel over the scene. The op- 
pressed and down-trodden city was wrapt in 
the depth of morning slumber, the aching and 
defiant hearts there all at rest. The transport 
passed on ; and as the sun rose with cold, 
reluctant ray upon that wintry landscape, she 
shot out from among the islands in the harbor, 
and turned her course along the headlands which 
mark the northern shore of Massachusetts Bay. 
At high noon of a short midwinter day, the 
vessel with its accursed freight rounded the rocky 
point of Marblehead and came to anchor. The 
steersman lounged lazily at the tiller ; two or 
three men paced her deserted deck. The short 
" interim of divine woi'ship," which the Puritan 
allowed himself, was ended, and the church bells 
of Marblehead had summoned the inhabitants to 
their afternoon devotion. The last notes of the 
opening psalm had hardly died away, when the 
sound of drum and fife was heard in the streets, 
and three hundred armed men, the freight which 
that mysterious vessel had landed at Roman's 
Cove, met the gaze of the astonished worship- 



H) ADDllESS BY UEO. li. LORING. 

pers. With a quick, impassioned supplication 
for their country, the })astors sent forth their 
flocks to watch the course of the invaders. 

Their steps were turned towards Salem. Sus- 
pecting the object of the visit. Major John 
Pedrick " hastened hither to give the alarm." 
Leslie and his troops marched on, over the then 
sparsely settled road between Marblehead and 
Salem, passed the Derby mansion, which then 
stood alone in the " south fields," and defiled 
along the crooked carriage path, occupying at 
that time the place of the present broad and 
beautiful southern avenue to our city. On reach- 
ing the South bridge, they were obliged to stop 
and repair the damage done there by the inhab- 
itants to arrest their progress. Having accom- 
plished this, the advance guard marched easterly 
towards Long, now Derby wharf, while the main 
body advanced towards the Court House, on 
Essex street, thence up Court, now Washington 
street, and down Lynde street towards North 
bridge. 

The inhabitants of Salem were already aroused. 
A body of people had gathered in front of the 
First Church, where the youthful Dunbar had 



ADDRESS BY GEO. P.. LORWG. 47 

just implored the divine blessing on his country, 
and where the heart of the venerable Bai-nard 
lingered and worshipped as he lay npon his 
paralytic bed. The younger Barnai-d, who had 
just commenced at the Korth Church a lono' 
career of piety, usefulness, large patriotism and 
unbounded fliith in Christ and his teachin<>-s 
which gave peculiar lustre to that now ancient 
pulpit ; who in the earliest days of the Revolu- 
tion wrote, as a prophet, to Judge Curwen what 
the latter was pleased to call " fancies and delu- 
sions " with regard to the "power, strength, 
grandeur and prowess, by sea and land, of the 
American people," " their policy, patriotism, in- 
dustry, progress in the useful arts, and their 
fixed detei-mination to withstand the attacks of 
tyranny," had dismissed his congregation and 
had repaired with them to the scene of action. 
In the East Church, the Rev. James Diman 
closed the Scriptures which he had expounded 
to that people for nearly forty years, blessed his 
congregation, and departed to join his townsmen 
in arms. Antipas Stewart, the school-master, 
who read the Church service on that aftei-noon 
at St. Peter's, hastened through the first lesson, 



48 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORING. 

and then led his hearers to the fight. The streets 
of the town, just now so silent, w^ere suddenly 
filled with an anxious crowd, in Sunday attire, 
inquiring of each other what these things meant. 

But one man in the multitude was ready to 
point out to Leslie the way to North bridge. 
Samuel Portei*, a lawyer, recently from Ipswich, 
used his cane for that purpose, and then retired 
with it to be heard of no more. We have no 
account of his evening walk. The Hon. Richard 
Derby, who owned a part of the cannon, when 
requested to exert his influence for their sur- 
render, repliedj — " Find them if you can : take 
them if you can : they will never be surren- 
dered." — A privilege of doubtful utility in such 
an hour. 

Leslie and his men arrived at North bridge 
attended by a concourse of people, a few of 
whom were armed, to find the draw raised to 
prevent his further progress. He and his men 
were silent, sullen and somew^hat impatient " to 
close the difiicult mission," evidently fearful of 
bloodshed. A dense mass of people hovered 
around his troops on one side of the river, and 
on the othci' was Timothy Pickering with forty 



ADDKESS BY «E(). H. LORrNTa. 49 

militia, and ranks increasing^ ready to dispute 
his advance sliould he ci'oss the stream. Captain 
Mason had meanwhile conveyed the ordnance 
to a thicket back of Devereux's hill, a mile's 
march from the water. The aspect of the popular 
leaders there was such as to remove all hope 
of trifling. Pickering, who had just been chosen 
Colonel of the First Regiment, in place of 
William Brown, wdiose officers had I'csigned on 
account of their attachment to the i-oyal cause, 
confi'onted the invaders from the opposite bank, 
w^ith a port and mien which few men, during his 
long and active life, dared resist. John Felt, 
who had quietly " kept close to Leslie every step 
from the Court House,'"' and whose name should 
be recorded for the admiration of all time, as that 
of a man whose self-possession and courage did 
not desert him in an hour of danger, whose 
eye and voice did not fail when death stared 
him in the face, who possessed 'all his faculties 
without undue asritation and concern when the 
time required him to be most a man, whose 
presence by the side of the invader was like 
the power of an opposing army, — John Felt 
stood there, a pillar of indignant humanity, 



50 ADDllESS BY GEO. B. LOBING. 

beyond which those men dared not pass. He 
cahnly suggested to Leslie that a struggle with 
the people would instantly awake a personal 
conflict between themselves, in which the life 
of one or both should be sacrificed. When 
Leslie threatened to fire on the people, he said 
to him, " you had better not fire ; you have no 
right to fire without further orders, and if you 
do fire you are all dead men." "For there," 
said Felt, j)ointing to the dense mass of his 
t(jwnsmen on the shore, " is a multitude^ every 
man of whom is ready to die in this strife." 
James Barr, too, will always be remembered as 
he who, unarmed, leaped into his " gundalo," 
and scuttled her Avith an axe, when the enemy 
proposed to use hei' in crossing" the stream. 
These men all faced instant death, with a fear- 
lessness which disarmed their foes, and gave 
them a charmed life, instead of the early mar- 
tyrdom which they were ready to suffer, for 
their country, with its immortal i-enown. Jonas 
Parker fell on the green at Lexington, having 
made a solemn vow^ never to I'un from British 
troops ; and as his spirit ascended to heaven, 
his name was recorded high in the temple of 



ADDRESS BY GEO. H. LORING, 51 

fame for the admiration of all men, and as an 
example for his peojjle. Let us write the name 
of JoliJi Felt there, by its side, as of him who 
taught the men of Lexington how to faee a foe. 

The people had now beeome excessively exas-. 
perated. They heaped abuse upon the troops, 
as myrmidons of King George, who had come 
to murder an unarmed and defenceless people, 
whose wives and children appealed silently to 
them for mei-cy. They claimed the right to 
defend their own highway and their own prop- 
erty ; and they vowed to do it, even unto death, 
The assistants of Barr and Felt had been wound- 
ed by the bayonets of the soldiers, as they were 
scuttling the boats that lay in the stream. A 
blood}^ conflict was imminent. 

The Rev. Thomas Barnard now^ appeared as 
a mediator between Leslie and the people. " You 
cannot," said he, " commit this violation against 
innocent men, here, on this holy da}^, without 
sinning against God and humanity. The blood 
of every murdered man will cry from the ground 
for vengeance upon yourself, and the nation 
wdiich you represent. Let me enti-eat you to 
return." On the other hand, he called upon his 



52 ADDliESS BY GEO. B. LOlIINCi. 

townsmen to adopt calm and moderate measures, 
and to consent to a peaceful adjustment of the 
troubles. 

The counsel of the good man pi'evailed. The 
draw of the bridge was slowly lowered. Pick- 
ering and his men were drawn up in position 
on the other side. Leslie and his forces marched, 
by Pickering's consent, thirty rods across the 
bridge, and wheeling, returned to Mai'blehead 
and thence to Boston. 

The cannon were safe ; the l^ritish authority 
had been checked ; the lives of our citizens were 
pi-eserved ; but a spirit had been i-oused which 
never slumbered until Salem had performed her 
part in the active service of the war, and had 
received with the country the rew^ards of an 
honorable peace. 

This, fellow citizens, is the narrative of the 
interesting event. But I cannot leave the picture 
entirely, without calling your attention to the 
commanding figure which stands in the fore- 
ground of the scene. A young man, a graduate 
of Harvard, who had divided his leisure hours 
between teaching military tactics to the young 
men, and sacred music to the maidens, and who 



ADDIIES8 BY GEO. B, LORING. 53 

earned ii slender subsistence as a clerk in the 
Registry of Deeds of Essex county, appeared 
on this occasion for the first time in that public 
career which became so distinguished, so useful, 
so honoral)le to his country and mankind. It 
is evident that Timothy Pickering was the ruling 
spirit of that hour. Unused to public couti'o- 
versy, he rose at once above the excitement aud 
alarm of the moment, took command of his men, 
and couunenced a long and eveutful life in 
which the self-possession and courage, which 
he then manifested, never forsook him. It cannot 
be said of him that he l)elonged to the ruling 
classes of this ancient town. But he was numi- 
festly the embodiment of that stern purpose 
aud true devotion which warmed eveiy patriot 
heart in that day, and which won the respect 
aud admiration of even those who had but little 
confidence in the cause. And he illustrates, as 
do few men in history, the power of unspotted 
integrity and of undoubted purity of purpose 
to control mankind even in the most adverse 
circumstances. He represented the best type of 
American revolutionaiy character ; iuijietuous 
without being rash ; resolute without impru- 



54 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOBING. 

dence ; sagacious without timidity ; stern with- 
out hardness ; patient, economical, honest ; and 
full of chivalry and audacity in a great cause, — 
of heroism in conflict, and entire simplicity in 
repose. It was he who kept this town up to 
the standard required by the great trials of the 
revolntion, by the purity of his character and 
his commanding intellect, and also by the high 
position which he gained among the great men 
of his time. Superior to all the allurements of 
l)ublic life, he set an example of a i)ure devo- 
tion to public service, which gave us our strength 
in the beginning, and is our reliance at this hour. 
We cannot be too grateful as a people that he 
stands forth in our history as a model American 
statesman, illustrating the power of free insti- 
tutions to develop the highest human atti'ibntes, 
and to enlist them in the work of creating and 
confirming popular government. With the stand 
at the ISTorth bridge for its historical event, and 
Timothy Pickering as its historical hero and sage, 
Salem has a right to claim a pi'oud place in the 
history of . onr country. 

And now, my fellow-citizens, I should be doing 
injustice to my own feelings, and I should dis- 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOllINTG. 55 

a|)poiiit the natural and si^ontaneous sentiment 
of all who hear me, Avere I to negleet the usual 
congratulations and memories which spring- up 
on a national day like this. We have heard 
much and said much of the power of the Ameri- 
can people,^ the greatness of the American 
Republic. For nearly a hundred years, the hi^h 
hopes and expectations,— the great promises and 
brilliant fulfilment, — the intense and oppressive 
trials, and the sublime and victorious conflicts, — 
the dangers and escapes, — the disasters and the 
pros])erity of our nation, have tilled the thoughts 
and inspired the tongues of our greatest and 
best men, have arrested the attention of the 
wisest throughout the world. We who have 
shared the trials, and have enjoyed the privileges 
and blessings are never weary of the theme. 
The story never grows old. The events are as 
dear to us now as ever. The great thought 
which inspires the beginning, and which has 
irradiated all the careei', now gives the power 
of perennial youth to this mature life and later 
day of our history. We turn with admiration, 
not to the century of our national existence 
alone, but to the two centuries and a half of 



56 ADDRESS BY GEO. J\. LOEIXCi. 

great protest, and developing communities, and 
struggling states, and advancing society, and 
independent thought, Avhich have marked the 
course of the American people through all their 
civil and social changes, and which constitute 
the most interesting and important chapter in 
all human history. We are almost oppressed 
and hewildered by this wonderful record of con- 
stant and triumphant progress. We realize and 
thank God that the best, and highest, and the 
greatest has been i)reserved to us ; and that 
as we have gone on increasing in matei'ial pros- 
peiity and power, the soundest and holiest doc- 
trines of religion and humanity have lain at 
the foundation of our national greatness, and 
have been confirmed by all the victories of our 
orreat national contests. We I'calize and thank 
God, also, that those men Avho have made our 
country what it is, — the home of the indei)endent 
citizenship, of social and civil equality, of sacred 
rights of property, of sound and honest popnlar 
instincts, of spontaneous hatred of dishonesty 
and crime, and love of honesty and truth, — have 
always been true to the wisest declarations and 
sublimest theories of the fathers from the begin- 
nin o\ 



ADDRESS BY f^EO. B. LORTXG. 57 

And so we rejoice, even for the thousandth 
time, in the undying courage and devotion of 
the Pilgrim who defied all the dangers of land 
and sea, tore up his old hearthstone and laid 
down a new one, counted life itself but cheap 
before the demands of his faith, patiently re- 
signed his dearest loved ones, endured the hor- 
rors of disease and starvation and cold, cheerfully 
and triumphantly, all for freedom to worship 
God, and for the enjoyment of a govermnent 
based on the consent, and conducted by the wis- 
dom, of the governed. We rejoice and we have 
a right, to rejoice, day after day, in summer 
and winter, in seed time and harvest, that a 
free government was founded on board the May^ 
flower, the fruits of three centuries of protest- 
ing thought and martyrdom iu England, and 
that this government was built upon the meeting- 
house and the school-house, as its chief corner- 
stones. We rejoice in that ancestry who read 
their bibles, and studied Magna Charta, genera- 
tion after generation, preparing the popular mind 
for the freedom achieved by their sons. We 
rejoice in the calm spirit of Franklin, who called 
the earliest convention for independence and 



58 ADDllESS BY GEO. B. LORING. 

who, while he served the Kmg loyally, held 
higher allegiance to God, and his own soul, 
and the people. We love to hear of James 
Otis still, whose fiery eloqnence inflamed the 
free spirit of Massachusetts ; of John Adams, 
the collossus of debate in the old continental con- 
gress ; of Samuel Adams, the man of the people, 
the simplest and most defiant of them all ; of 
Joseph Warren, who poured out his youthful 
blood on Bunker Hill, as the first libation on 
the altar of Freedom ; of Thomas Jefferson, 
declaring to an astonished world that all men 
are created equal, and have inalienable rights 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; 
of Washington, whose calm and steady spirit 
throws a divine light over the infancy of that 
people, whom his wisdom and valor led through 
the desert, and whose system of government was 
made practical, and possible, and real, through 
his unambitious devotion, and his profound re- 
spect for the popular characteristics of those 
who entered upon the work of governing them- 
selves ; of Abraham Lincoln, the prophet of the 
wilderness, the seer of the down-trodden and 
the oppressed, whose great instincts recognized 



ADDRESS BY UEO. B. LORIN(^. 59 

every throb of the popular heart, and brushed 
aside all sophistry and diplomacy, subduing all 
the intellectual trickery about him, in his religious 
faith in humanity, and his great toil for its re- 
demption ; of the half million of heroes, who 
passed to a radiant immortality through the 
crimson gates of the great war for freedom, or 
who now devote their lives to the faithful and 
honorable service of the country they saved. 
We do not grow weary of this recital. And 
we look back in reverent admiration of the hioh 

o 

thought and heroic endeavor which inspired and 
founded our nationality, and with an earnest 
desire to learn what those qualities were which 
accomplished such high purpose, and gave us 
such a rich inheritance. 

And now let us never forget that our fathers 
were ahvays greater than the circumstances, and 
accidents, and events by which they were sur- 
rounded. They seem to have been ever masters 
of the situation in which they were placed. The 
lapse of time and the rapid accumulation of 
historic incident, since the first blow was struck 
for freedom on this continent, have given to 
the colonial and revolutionary period a grandeur, 



60 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOEING. 

which, considering its actual reality, is unequalled 
in histor}^ The work accomplished was so vast, 
that we have continually before oiu- minds a vision 
of means as vast. To us, the victories are the 
achievements of great armies ; the assemblies are 
a surging multitude of defiant patriots ; the 
orators sway the great concourse ; the captains 
stand forth surrounded by all the pomp and 
circumstance of which Avar is capable ; the peo- 
ple are a mighty people, driving an invader 
fi'om the soil, and founding, by almost imperial 
decree, a great empire of freedom. But it was 
not so. We can hardly realize now the insig- 
nificance of the circumstances of our revolu- 
tionary history. The American Republic is 
indeed a great matter in our day — but it was a 
little fire which kindled it in the beginning. 
AYhen the great words were uttered, there were 
no multitudinous audiences. When the great 
battles were fought, there were no hosts of armed 
men. When the great nation was founded, there 
was but a people feeble and few. Twenty thous- 
and men constituted the American army. Three 
millions of scattered colonist? were the defiant 
people. Massachusetts, with her province of 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORING. 61 

Maine, held but three hundred thousand. Boston 
was a small commercial town of thirteen thous- 
and persons. Bunker Hill looked down upon 
the little viHage of Charlestown. Concord and 
Lexington were but hamlets. A Congress was 
a caucus of less than fifty men ; its legislation 
had no binding force ; its declarations were the 
rallying cry of Chieftains to their rebellious 
clans. One-half the people were reluctant — the 
other half desperate. One-half the colonies were 
determined to be free — the other half cared but 
little whether they wei'e free or not. To the 
great powers of Europe, the contest was but 
the revolt of a few remote English dependencies, 
whose success would simply wrest from Great 
Britain a portion of her foothold on the Ameri- 
can Continent. 

What, then, has made this period so refulgent, 
— so in harmony with all the brightest periods 
of history, — so fit a beginning of all the great 
achievement which has followed, — the aj^propriate 
dawn of such a resplendent day ? For its con- 
temporaneous glory and charm, we may attrib- 
ute something to the efi'ect of locality and geo- 
graphical position. The story of commercial 



62 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOKING. 

adventure and religious fervor, which surrounded 
the early settlement of the American colonies, 
had become famihar to every intelligent Europe- 
an, when those colonies commenced their revolt 
against the mother country. The chivalry and 
heroism of the days of John Smith, and John 
Carver, and Miles Standish, and John Endicott, 
had received a sort of romantic record in the 
annals of the times. Far oif towards the setting 
sun was the land of all this fabulous enterprise 
and this pious devotion. Between the civilization 
of Europe, with its glittering wealth, its social 
and civil splendors, its long and varied career, 
from barbarism through all the phases of luxury 
and literature, and wretchedness and ignorance, — 
between this and the country of the Pilgrims, 
and the Cavaliers, of De Leon with his fountain 
of youth, and De Soto with his rivers flowing 
over golden sands, there rolled three thousand 
miles of stormy sea, comparatively unexplored, 
a terror to primitive commerce, renowned more 
as the highway of the Mayflower, than as the 
pathway of the argosies of great mercantile ad- 
venture. To the navigator, mankind still ac- 
corded the " illi rohur et ces triplex,''^ the heart 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORING. 63 

of oak and ti-iple brass, which the old Latin 
poet had ascribed in his day to those who 
launched forth upon a narrower commerce on 
the stormy bosom of the Mediterranean. Beyond 
this vast and illimitable ocean, whose breadth was 
grotesquely exaggerated on all the charts of that 
day, lay a land of interminable forests, of bands 
of murderous and bloodthirsty savages, of roaring 
wild beasts, of rivers rising among the ice-clad 
hills of the north and flowing thousands and 
thousands of miles to cool the burning sands 
of the equator, a land stretching from sea to 
sea, wild, unexplored, uninhabited, dark, dismal 
and unknown. This country, so strange and wild, 
was recog^iized as the home of some of the best 
blood of Europe. But the heroic and untamable 
spirit which had brought that blood hither, had 
impressed upon the popular mind of Euroj^e a 
deeper sense of the mystery which hung over 
this vast continent of untravelled mountain, and 
valley, and plain, and of darkness and gloom. 
The American problem was not only not solved, 
but it was not opened. Science had not mastered 
either its surface or its depths ; its physical 
geography was unknown ; its geological myster- 



64 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOKING. 

ies were uii sounded ; the cajDacity of its soil 
untested. The military adventures sent hither 
had resulted in hardship and disaster, equalled 
only by the modern expeditions to the Arctic seas. 
The horrors of the old French war, the sad death 
of Wolfe on the far northern heights of Abra- 
ham, the disastrous and sickening defeat of 
Braddock, ambushed in the savage depths of a 
western forest, had shed a heavier gloom than 
even nature herself had cast, over this wild and 
remote region. Removing to America was an 
act of desperation ; living in America was an 
act of defiance ; fighting in America was an 
act of audacity. And so it was that when our 
fathers struck for freedom, they found themselves 
entrenched behind a wide and trackless and un- 
known sea, and clothed with a panoply of cour- 
age, and virtue, and high character, which the 
early colonial history had thrown over them. 
Here they were, the heirs of a land which nature 
had fortified for them, heirs of institutions which, 
sheltered by the forest from the burning and 
withering glare of imperial power, had become 
a part of American civilization already, the 
church, the schoolhouse, and the town-meeting, 



ADDRESS BY GEO. H. LOItlXG. 65 

heirs of a bold and defiant spirit, and heirs of a 
position on the earth which gave them a romantic 
and mysterions interest, and made them an object 
of admiration to the chivalrons, and an object 
of contempt to the devotees of legitimacy and 
impei-ial power. 

Fortunately planted, then, on these shores, they 
enjoyed an opportunity to proclaim the most 
liberal doctrines, to establish the most liberal in- 
stitntions, and to pnrsue the most liberal policy 
with comparative impnnity. They learned social 
equality thi'ough the relations established by their 
lives of hardship, in which they learned that 
one man was as good as another, and that wise 
connsel, jndicions conduct of public affairs, com- 
mercial integrit}^ moral rectitude, and religions 
faith, belong to the great brotherhood of man, 
and are not to be monopolized by those who may 
be fortunate in birth and inheritance. They 
learned the lesson of civil rights in their town 
meetings and in their popular assemblies ; and, 
by their local governments, they swejit away 
every barrier between man and his enjoyment 
of all the rights of property, his voice in the 
government under which he lives, his privileges 



66 ADDKESS BY CEO. B. LOKING. 

as a citizen, his opportunities as a member of a 
community based on freedom and equality. In 
this way it was that they became greater than the 
circumstances and events by which they were 
surrounded, and grew up to be entire masters 
of their situation. The wise men among them 
were wise not for their own day and for the 
circumscribed theatre in which they acted, but 
for a future day and future occasions of vastly 
greater magnitude and importance. John Adams 
spoke not for a continental congress alone, but 
for the legislative power of the most [lowerful 
republic in the world and of all time. Samuel 
Adams did not call togethei- his caucus for the 
Boston of 1775 alone, but for the future capital 
of a populous, active, industrious, aspiring and 
well-organized commonwealth. Joseph Warren 
did not lay down his life to drive an invader 
from the soil of Massachusetts, but to teach 
all who might come after him how to fight 
for the freedom which they have proclaimed. 
George AYashington did not leave his luxui'ious 
home and lead the armies of the Revolution, 
simply to record in the history of war a few 
names of battles and sieges, but to give those 



ADDllESS BY (JEO. !>,. LOTlTXCi, ()7 

names a sigiiifieance in all coming time. Thomas 
Jefferson did not declare that " all men are creat- 
ed eqnal," as a rallying cry foi* the armies of 
the people in their early struggle against despotic 
power, — but as an inspiration for a great nation- 
ahty, whose glory could not be complete until 
the great text of Independence had become the 
law of the land, and man, made in the image 
of his Maker, could stand upright before his 
fellow man, no one calling as master and no 
one answering as slave. Washington was greater 
than the revolution. Jefferson and Adams were 
greater than the Congress in which they sat. 
The work tl]ey had in hand was greater than 
the hour in which they performed it ; as we 
should realize, Avho now enjoy the privileges 
which they secured for us, and witness the power 
of the free, and indejDcndent, and prosperous, 
and educated, and religious republic which they 
founded. It was, moreover, the grandeur of their 
enterprise which gave unnsual weight to their 
counsels, and secured the obedience of those who 
were less wise than they. They met with a 
popular response it is true, because they uttered 
continually the voice of the people, demanding 



G8 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LORING. 

their highest rights, proclaiming their most solemn 
duty, and speaking forth their noblest sentiments 
and their sublimest enthusiasm. But it is touch- 
ing and amazing, to look back and see how 
solitai-y these great men were in their great- 
ness. There was many a revolutionary hoiu', 
in which the people were either discouraged 
or benumbed by the weight of misfortune which 
pressed upon them. And nowhere, unless it be 
during the dark days of that first winter at 
Plymouth, when death was doing his fatal work 
in the little band, and J(^hn Carver, and Eldei' 
Brewstei', and Edward Winslow, and William 
Bradford, bore the ark of the covenant alone 
at the head of the enfeebled column, and pre- 
served the tables of the Lord for the guidance 
and blessing of future generations, nowhere, I 
say, unless it be in this sacred chapter of the 
world's history, can we find such a record of true 
greatness as that which our revolutionary fathers 
established, when they raised their minds to an 
understanding of the highest import of the hour 
in which they lived, and filled the people with 
hope and courage from their ow^n gi'eat hearts. 
With what a calm and majestic dignity they 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOKINU. 69 

bore themselves throiig-h all the trial ! They 
believed in the practical application of the best 
doctrines of human government ; and their belief 
was strengthened by the service which their an- 
cestors had performed in this direction from the 
earliest settlement of the colonies. Their theory 
of government they set forth and established 
not as doctrinaires but as statesmen. They 
fought not for a new creed, but for the defence 
of an old one. Theirs was no fi'verish and 
spasmodic attempt to reform and reconstruct, but 
a bold and healthy effort to pi-eserve and apply. 
In their own land their antagonisms were small, — 
their fidelity to the best thought of the hour 
having disarmed all those who from interest or 
conviction would ol)struct the progressive current. 
Without prc'judice, therefore, and with minds bent 
on perfecting the system of government which 
had been proclaimed by them for this republic, 
they entered upon their woTk. N^ot to defend 
a dogma, but to apply a principle of human right, 
— not to found a dynasty, but to give the people 
a constitutional government, — not to jninish their 
opponents in fhe hour of victory, but to convert 
them, — was the business entrusted to their hands. 



70 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOlilNG. 

Wisely did they perform their duty. They were 
never misled by sophistry, nor blinded by their 
passions. But in all their application of the 
abstract views upon state and society so liberally 
offered them, they displayed unerring common- 
sense, and in the adjustment of the domestic 
and foreign complications which followed the 
war, they were guided by the most unwavering 
common honesty. They believed in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and tried to live up to it ; 
they believed in the honest payment of a national 
debt, and they accomplished it ; they believed in 
faithful civil service, and they demanded it of all 
their public servants ; they believed in republican 
simplicity, and they left, as a rich inheritance 
to their heirs, their record of simple and unosten- 
tatious civil organization. Whatever may have 
been their faults they were not incapable, or dis- 
honest, or personally ambitious against the great 
work of government in which they were engaged. 
^J^hey were the intellectual and moral power of 
their day ; and they left their own imi^osing 
monument for the reverence and admiration of 
all who should come after them. 
And now, as the fathers of the Kepublic, in 



ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOllING. 71 

their hour of trial, reahzed and avoided the 
dangei-s which lay all along theii- pathway, so far 
as human wisdom could, so we cannot be true 
to their memory or their trust without listening 
to the warning voice of our own day and genera- 
tion. They learned for the first time that the 
government was made for the people and not 
the people for the goveiiiment. So may we learn 
that it is not in accordance with republican in- 
stitutions to call upon the government to perform 
what the citizens should perform, with an enlight- 
ened policy and guided by that law of free society, 
that the highest prosperity of one is the pros- 
perity of all. May we avoid then, the approach- 
ing danger of leaning upon the government when 
we should rely upon ourselves, as we would avoid 
the corruption of a centralized power, jjolluted 
with schemes and jobs. Let us beware, then, 
of centralization and public and jirivate extrav- 
agance. 

And, finally, let me warn you against intel- 
lectual arrogance. The leaders of a republic 
of popular freedom and right must be learners 
as well as teachers. Our fathers never toiled 
so well and so efiectively as when they listened 



72 ADDRESS BY GEO. R. LORINd. 

to the popular voice ; and they never taught 
so well as when they embodied the best popular 
sentiment of their times into captivating phrase, 
and presented it in an attractive form to the 
popular mind. In this sense alone were they 
doctrinaires. Xo dogma ever took possession 
of their minds to the exclusion of practical wis- 
dom, and of a just appreciation of the value 
of practical work. The governmental service 
of an educated republic must rest upon the com- 
mon judgment of mankind, upon an enlightened 
sense of what is right, and just, and true, and 
practicable. The voice of the town-meeting must 
be heard as well as the voice of Congress. And 
while we provide education for our professions, 
for our engineers, and merchants and architects, 
and for the best of our farmers, each in his par- 
ticular sphere, we must rely on the power of 
well-guided public opinion for the best conduct 
of public affairs. The introduction of ideologists, 
and theorists, and dogmatists, into controlling- 
position can only end in confusion and disaster. 
Calm and watchful sagacity, sensitive honor, 
stern integrity, self-possessed judgment and inde- 
pendence, are the qualities which have given us 



ADDRESS BY GEO, B. LORING. 73 

our most useful American statesmen. It is such 
as these who gave us our national existence, — 
and it is such as these who have extricated us 
from our difficulties, and led us out of danger. 
A broad and general culture, therefore, by obser- 
vation and candid investigation, a culture which 
enlarges the heart and liberalizes an open mind, 
this alone can secure to a republic truly valuable 
service. When the soundest mental culture 
would serve the people, it must join hands with 
the people ; not to assert its supremacy, not to 
arrogate to itself superiority, not to rule, but 
for mutual guidance, support and instruction. So 
shall we still see, as generation follows genera- 
tion, now a cultivated and philosophical Jeffer- 
son uttering the voice of the people, and now a 
prophetic Lincoln stepping from his solitude 
and making his great response for the people 
in turn. It is intellectual candor which works 
our honor ; it is intellectual arrogance which may 
work our irreparable harm. 

Congratulating you on the opportunity which 
our republic affords for the exercise of man's best 
faculties, I close. Here may the press, rising 
above passion and prejudice, exert that mighty 

10 



74 ADDRESS BY GEO. B. LOKING. 

influence which by right should belong to an 
intelligent, fair and honorable corps of public 
teachers, making a daily appeal to the public 
mind. Here may the orator, learning his highest 
duty from every call of humanity, justice and 
patriotism reach the sublimest purpose of eloquent 
speech. Here may the statesman perform a high 
and honorable service, whose foundations are the 
wants and necessities of a great people, toiling 
for the perfection of free institutions, and the 
elevation of every man up to the full enjoyment 
of their blessed and life-giving privileges. And 
here may we all, high and low, rich and poor, 
learn to respect each other, and to believe 
more and more, in those principles of state and 
society on which our republic rests, and by which 
it can fulfil its divine mission, and rise superior 
to difficulty and danger. 



ADDEESS BY REV. EDMUND B. WILLSON. 



ADDRESS. 



To the fact of my having succeeded the Rev. 
Thomas Barnard, junior, (after several interven- 
ing pastorates,) as the minister of the North 
Church, I owe the honor of bearing a part in 
this day's proceedings. 

On the 26th of February, 1775, Mr. Barnard 
was a young man of barely twenty-seven years 
of age, and had been settled but two years. His 
congregation was a large one, and had in it many 
persons of wealth, intelligence and social promi- 
nence. The principal of these were adherents 
of the British Crown in the contest which divided 
Massachusetts a hundred years ago, and with 
different degrees of zeal and activity supported 
that side, as against those who encouraged re- 
sistance to the royal authority. But the popular 
cause had its representatives also in Mr. Barnard's 
congregation, not few, nor insignificant men in 
the scenes we are commemorating. I have no 
means of naming the individuals of the one class 



78 iU)DEESS BY E. B. WILLSOI!^^. 

or of the other who were in their pews on that 
Sunday afternoon when Colonel Leslie's troops 
inarched past the chnrch doors on their way to 
the North bridge. But I have the means of 
bringing before you the usual aspect of that 
assembly as its pastor had looked down upon it 
from his high pulpit in the times shortly preceding 
that day, so far as to name a considerable number 
of the best known persons who were accustomed 
to attend upon his ministrations, and to assign 
to them their places in the spacious meeting- 
house which stood on the corner of Lynde and 
North streets. Let me point out to you, in 
their seats, first some of the more eminent of 
the loyalists. 

Here, on the preacher's left hand, in the second 
pew from the pulpit, sits Doctor Edward A. 
Holyoke, the dignified gentleman and distin- 
guished physician. Two pews beyond him, in 
the southwest corner, is Clarke Gayton Pickman, 
whose father, the late Col. Benjamin Pickman, 
senior, had been the most active and prominent 
among the founders of the society. Li the pew 
next him, a little down the western side, on the 
preacher's left, is John Nutting, who had been 



ADDRESS BY E. B. WTLLSOX. 79 

thirty-six years a ruling elder of the First church 
before he was elected to the same office in the 
^orth church. In the pew adjoining his, sits 
William Pickman, another son of the late Col. 
Benjamin Pickman. A little farther on, in the 
same range of wall pews is Henry Gardner, a 
merchant and graduate of Harvard College. 
Beyond him Francis Cabot, an eminent merchant. 
Farther along the same wall, Samuel Curwen, 
son of the Rev. George Curwen, a minister of 
the First church ; the son a Judge of Admiralty 
and a merchant, who left the country when hos- 
tilities broke out between the home government 
and the colonies, and remained abroad till after 
peace was declared. Andrew Dalglish is seated 
beyond him, a merchant and Scotchman, also a 
refugee loyalist a little later. In two wall pews 
a little to the right of him, and nearly opposite the 
pulpit, sit the brothers-in-law, Colonel and 
Judge William Browne and Joseph Blaney, Esq., 
the former a Judge of the Supreme Court, and, 
until the political troubles broke in upon all exist- 
ing social relations, one of the most popular and 
influential men in the town, but who soon with- 
drew to England, and was subsequently made 



80 ADDRESS BY E. B. WILLSON. 

Governor of Bermuda. Not to pursue this enu- 
meration to a tedious length, Jacob Ashton, a 
a merchant and graduate of Harvard college, 
may be seen aci'oss the aisle, a little way east 
from Colonel Browne. On the minister's right 
hand, in wall pews, are, most distant, Benjamin 
Pickman, soon after a royalist refugee, son of 
the late Col. Benjamin Pickman, and brother 
of William and Clarke Gayton Pickman before 
mentioned ; then Weld Gardner, William Yans 
and James Hastie, in the order given. In the 
body of the house, nearly in front of the pulpit 
and a little to the right, Jonathan Goodhue. 

Scattered among these prominent members of 
his congregation who were on the side of the 
British Government, Mr, Barnard saw others 
known as leading spirits among the patriots in 
opposition, fostering and organizing resistance 
to the oppressive acts of that same government, 
several of whom took a conspicuous part in the 
exciting scene at the IS'orth bridge, or had had 
a hand in making ready for use the guns, car- 
riages and equipments which it was the object 
of Col. Leslie's expedition to capture. John 
Felt, pronounced the hero of the day by one 



ADDKESS BY E. B. WILLSON^. 81 

historian who has rckited the events of the day 
very fnlly, and who says of Felt that he kept 
ch)sc to Colonel Leslie from the time he left the 
Court house till he retired from the IS^orth bridge 
on his return to his transport, that he was the 
prompt and persistent remonstrant when the 
British commander threatened to fire on the 
crowd at the bridge, and of whom it is said 
that he strode out of chiu-ch one Sunday, and 
nailed up his pew afterwards, because Mr. Bar-- 
nard closed a petition with God save the King /— - 
Captain John Felt sits out there on Mr. Bar- 
nard's i-ight hand, and next to the minister's own 
family pew. Colonel, or Captain, Mason ivS nearly 
before the preacher, a little to the left, across 
the aisle from Judge Curwen. David Mason was 
the agent who had purchased, and was causing 
to be mounted and prepared for service the guns 
for which Colonel Leslie had come ; while his 
wife and daughters sitting there in pew ^N'o. 94, 
had assisted in the manufacture of 5000 flannel 
cartridges which were to make these cannon 
serviceable. There, too, among Mr. Barnard's 
hearers is to be seen Robert Foster the l)lack- 
smith, to whom the ironing of the carriages 
n 



82 ADDRESS BY E. B. WILLSON. 

had been entrusted, and whose smithy was near 
the bridge, on the north side, the place '%vhere 
the field pieces, if not now to be found, had lately 
been.* 

It will be seen that not only Mr. Barnard, the 
minister, but several of his parishioners took a 
lively interest in the doings of the 26th of Feb- 
ruary, and had much at stake on the success or 
failure of Colonel Leslie's expedition. Colonel 
Mason, who lived near the church, was one of 
the first, perhaps the first to be informed b}- 
a faithful messenger from Marblehead of the 
approach of the troops. Hurrying to the meet- 

* Foster appears not to have been a pew-holder at this time, but was 
one of the oriirinal subscribers to the fund raised for building the North 
meeting-house in 1773. 

There is scarcely room for a doulit that Paul Dudley Sargent was a 
member of the North society when Leslie's ex|)edition occurred. His 
mother, Katharine (Winthrop) Sargent, and his half-brother, Judge William 
Browne, before mentioned, were members of the Noilh Church at its 
formation, and Paul Dudley Sargent's name often appears on subscription 
lists of the North Church at a little later period. He was a son of Epes 
Sargent, born in Salem in 1745, entered the army in 1775, commanded 
a regiment under General Ward at Cambridge in 1776, was in several 
engagements, and was wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill. He removed 
to Boston in 1783, and afterwards to Sullivan, Maine, where, it is said, " he 
received, at one time, from Governor Hancock three commissions : Justice 
of the Peace ; Judge of Probate ; and Judge of Common Pleas ;" and 
there he died Sept. 15, 1828, aged 83 years. A diagram is subjoined, which 
will place most of the before-mentioned parishoners of Rev. Mr. Barnard, 
in their respective and relative positions in the meeting-house. 



(Diagram of J^orth Church, Salem, lyy^. 



Passageway, or Court. 



38 


1 
59 


39 


58 


40 


57 


41 


56 


42 


55 


43 


54 


44 


53 


45 


52 


46 


51 


47 


50 


48 


49 



60 


79 


61 


78 


62 


77 


63 


76 


64 


75 


65 


74 


66 


73 


67 


72 


68 


71 


69 


70 



80 


101 


81 


100 


82 


99 


83 


98 


84 


97 


.85 


96 


86 


95 


87 


94 


88 


93 


89 


92 


90 


91 



20 



Lynde Street. 



2. Dr. Edward A. Holyoke, 

i & 5. C. G. Pickman, 

6. .John Nutting, 

7. Wm. Pickman, 
9. Henry Gardner, 

10, 11. Francis Cabot, 

12, 13. S. Curwen, 

14. A. Dalgleisch, 

17. Joseph Blaney, 

18. Col. W. Browne, 



!^ 



23. Jacob Ashton, 

28. Col. B. Pickman, 

29. .James Hastie, 

30. Weld Gardner, 

32. .John Felt, 

33. Minister's Pew, 

37. James Hastie, 

38. W. Vans, 

58. Jonathan Gooodhne. 

94. David Mason. 



ADDRESS P,Y E. P,. WTLESOX. 88 

ing-housc be shouted the ahirm cry nt the door : 
" The regiikirs are coming !" The congregation 
was in the streets in a few minutes. Bells and 
drums rallied the town's people quickly to the 
line of march of the British soldiers ; some 
curious, some anxious, some resolved ; all in an 
excitement of expectation and suspense. 

The scene at the bridge has often been de- 
scribed. I need not linger over it. The office 
of the man whom I commemorate here more 
particularly to-day was that of a peacemaker. 
lie joined his people and repaired at once to the 
spot where Colonel Leslie and his troops came 
to a sudden and unwilling halt. I^ndoubtedl}^ 
the colonel was a resolute man, and would not 
turn back without an honest attempt to take the 
cannon ; and he was not afraid of the danger that 
lay in his path. But here was a crowd of people, 
some of them to be sure only curious lookers 
on, and a few, may be, wishing that the British 
soldiers might effect their purpose, but the greater 
part closing well up in front, some on one side 
the bridge some on the other, some down in 
the boats, a few sitting on the edge of the up- 
lifted draw itself, but all closing in well about 



84 ADDIIESS BY E. B. WILLSON. 

the front, — a body of men just as determined 
that those soldiers should not proceed farther 
on their ei'rand, as the soldiers were that they 
would not turn back leaving it unaccomplished. 
One rash act of violence, a shot, a blow, a for- 
ward movement of the armed men, and there was 
a magazine of exasperated passion ready at any 
moment to blaze into open and bloody conflict. 
If that should happen no man could foi-esee the 
end. 

It was not in the nature of Thomas Barnard 
to stand timidly in the back-ground when stirring 
events like these were going forward. He had 
inclined to support the British ministry in the 
beginning of its controversy with the American 
colonies, and probably was not yet able to see the 
possibility of successful resistance. But he was 
a lover of liberty and of justice, and made the 
case of the suffering, however humble, his own. 
His sympathies were quick, and doubtless drew 
him on this occasion alternately in opposite direc- 
tions. So, now, with an intense realization of 
the critical state of affairs, he sought to avert 
a collision which might devote the town to de- 
struction, possibly, and to his apprehension would 



ADDRESS BY E. B. WILLSON. 85 

be likely to accomplish no result which a patriot 
could desire. 

But be appreciated the situation. He knew 
the temper and the character of such men as Felt, 
Mason and Pickering-, and knew that it would 
not be they who would yield. He never thought 
of preventing bloodshed by trying to persuade 
them to give the soldiers passage. There is no 
evidence that he was not as willing as they to 
refuse it. His expostulation was addressed to 
the British officer alone. It was not well re- 
ceived. " And who are you, sir ?" answered 
Leslie to his remonstrance, turning sharply on 
him. The young minister stood his ground, 
replying with proper spirit and a decent dignity : 
" I am Thomas Barnard, a minister of the gospel, 
and ray mission is peace." There is no contempt 
to be thrown upon this figure. He is a minister 
and he counsels peace, as is becoming. But there 
is no weakness in him, no giving back. He faces 
the angry officer. He will not be silent. He is 
rightfully there, and will not leave his exasperated 
and imperilled neighbors to their fate. He stays 
the full hour and a half that the altercation lasts ; 
stays at the centre of the conference ; furthers 



86 ADDRESS BY E. B. WILLSON. 

the suggested compromise by which honor is to 
be saved on the one side, and no guns lost on 
the other. Nor did he leave the place till the 
return march for Marblehead Xeck was begun. 

Permit me now a few words respecting the 
service rendered by this man, and by such men 
in like emergencies. It is easily overlooked. 

Courage is always admirable. There is never 
danger that the bold, forward step in the face of 
peril Avill foil of applause. Courage united with 
prudence, even restrained by prudence, while it 
may render still greater service, is often lost 
sight of, and even seems a time-serving timidity, 
and to need apology. Thomas Barnard did as 
Timothy Pickering had done before him, and 
with the same motive, sought to avoid violence 
as long as it could be avoided without loss of 
honor, or of the country's cause. AVe do not rate 
the couragx! of Pickering any the less true cour- 
age because he studied the right time and place 
to make a stand, and waived the opportunity to 
make it before that time came. Six months be- 
fore Leslie's expedition, the Salem Committee 
of Correspondence called a town meeting to 
choose deputies to meet other deputies from other 



ADDRESS BY E. B. WILLSON. 87 

towns of the county, at Ipswich, "to consider of, 
and determine on, such measures as the late acts 
of Parhament and our other grievances render 
necessary and expedient." For this, some mem- 
bers of the committee, — Timothy Pickering first, 
— were arrested at the command of Governor 
Gage, and brought by the Sheriff before Colonel 
Frye, the Justice issuing the warrant, and re- 
quired to recognize in £100, without sureties, 
to appear at the next Superior Court and answer. 
Some were for resisting at this point. 'Jlie ad- 
vice of Colonel Pickering, however, was to give 
the recognizance. The proceedings of the Justice 
had been regular. There was no danger of con- 
viction. It would in no wise prejudice their 
cause. While : " If we oppose noAv," he wrote 
about it, " and the Governor should persist in his 
attempt to execute the laws, a tumult and carnage 
must ensue." These reasons prevailed with his 
colleagues, as they had convinced himself. Here 
is illustrated the discretion which makes up no 
issue prematurely ; and postponing the crisis 
till the time is ripe, seeks also if it can, to 
place the responsibility of becoming the peace- 
breaker upon the opponent. The long forbearance 

12 



88 ADDRESS BY E. B. WII.LSON. 

of the colonies was as wise as it was magnanimous 
and right. It gave time for their further politi- 
cal education, for further consolidation of their 
strength, and the deeper rooting of their purpose; 
and so more perfectly united them in spirit, and 
made their final resistance more efiective when 
the time had fully come. 

AYe saw the like advantage gained in our 
late civil war, by a patient waiting for the oppor- 
tune moment to strike, and by the late and re- 
luctant acceptance of the gage of battle ; which 
to many seemed at the time an unworthy par- 
leying when it was time to act. Many were 
out of patience. They thought it a fatal dilato- 
riness to confer, and consider propositions of 
adjustment, and to hold terms with the repre- 
sentatives of rebellious states ; and so it would 
have been if there had been danger that the 
question at issue would become obscured by 
delay. But if that true issue was likely to be 
becoming continually more distinctly visible to 
the general perception the more it was set in 
many lights, it was a gain. As it was, every day 
it became plainer that it was a question affect- 
ing the nation's life. Every day it became plainer 



ADDKESS BY E. B. WILLSON. 89 

that it 7nust be met, and that there was no possi- 
bility of avoiding it long. xVnd finally, the nn- 
muzzling of the guns upon Fort Sumpter at 
one stroke welded the loyal :N^orth into one mind 
and purpose, and made all ready to go forward 
as they had not been before. It was well that the 
collision was not invoked sooner ; and that the 
first uplifting of the hand of strife was not upon 
the nation's side. Abraham Lineoln seemed to 
many too forbearing and temporizing. But his 
wisdom stands approved to-day, while his courage 
has never been impeached. 

The just narrowly escaping a collision at the 
^orth bridge makes the twenty-sixth of February 
a day of less note than the nineteenth of April 
of the same year : the name of Salem less often 
writ in the annals of the opening revolution than 
Concord and Lexington. Yet the spirit was 
the same, the people were the same, the resolve 
was the same. The act was essentially the same. 
Had Colonel Leslie been as rash at Salem as 
Major Pitcairn was at Lexington, in ordering 
his men to fire, what occurred in Middlesex would 
in its main features have taken place in Essex. 
The ])ostponement, if tlie conllict was to come, 



90 ADDRESS BY E. B. WILLSOIST. 

was a gain. An increasing exasperation ; a deep- 
ening sense of wrong ; a firmer determination ; 
some more gathering of men and supplies ; a 
more full uncovering of the purpose of the gov- 
ernment not to relax its assumptions a hair's 
breadth, nor to hear to reason : these strength- 
ened the will and hardened the i-esolution of our 
fathers to their task. It was a great gain. 

The wise student of history reads of 7nen, 
of cJiavacter, under all events. It is only men 
who have a good cause at heart, and who see 
the principles involved in the contests through 
which they pass and in which they participate, 
who make history which it profits to read. Dash- 
ing movement, the sweep of armed hosts, the 
substitution of republics for monarchies, and of 
monarchies again for republics — revolutions, all — 
do but lead us at last, by whatever road, to 
men and their motives. Wherever in these we 
find those principles of conduct predominate 
which carry human welfare forward, which better 
human society, and ennoble individual character, 
such as honor, rectitude, equality of rights for 
all, there we trace the career of a people whose 
part will be no ignoble or insignificant one among 
such as render service to mankind. 



ADDRESS BY E. B. AVTLLSOX. 91 

The question put to Thomas Barnard by Col- 
onel Leslie was really the question of questions 
that day. Who are you ? If King and min- 
isters had but known the true answer to that 
inquiry, in its widest applications to the men of 
all these American colonies, they would have left 
the frugal, hardy, intelligent, self-reliant colonists 
in i^eace. 

Duties yet remain which will show of what 
stuif we, the children of those fathers, are. We 
have our own battles to fight. If with enemies 
that beat no drums, and marshal no lines, ene- 
mies not the less real or formidable. And 

" Life may be given in many ways, 
And loyalty to truth be sealed 
As bravely in the closet as the field, 
So s^renerous is Fate : — 



Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release ! 

Thy God in these distempered days, 

Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of his ways, 

And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace ! 

Bow down in prayer and praise ! 

O Beautiful ! ray country ! ours once more ! 

AVhat words divine of lover or of poet 
Could tell our love and make tliee know it, 
Among the nations bright beyond compare." 



PD 2.14. 




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